Holy Wisdom Blog

Are you handy with wood? Volunteer(s) needed to rebuild monastery chairs. Holy Wisdom Monastery has many oak dining chairs that need repair. These chairs will last another few decades if we can find help to rebuild them. Several volunteers have already re-built some chairs and have developed a good set of instructions, as well as a list of needed tools (rubber or dead drop hammer, power screw driver, drill, clamps, etc). Volunteers should have the necessary tools and a place to work on the chairs. Interested? Contact Jan at (608) 836-1631 x123.

The following homily was delivered by Patti LaCross at Sunday Assembly on March 6, 2011. The readings from the lectionary schedule that day were Exodus 24:12-18, 2 Peter 1:16-21, and Matthew 17:1-9. It is good to be here, up on the hill, savoring moments of silence too rare in this “state of siege” and all the political activity accompanying it that intensifies our already busy lives. It is good, and it is right to be here with all of you, my companions, hearing the Word and breaking bread together in the name and memory of Jesus of Nazareth. Today that Word …

On March 11, 1953, Mother Monica Black, Sister Annunciata Byrne and Sister Martha Glaser came to Madison, Wisconsin from Sioux City, Iowa. For fifty years St. Vincent Hospital in Sioux City had been the work of the Sisters of St. Benedict. In 1953 Bishop O’Connor of Madison invited them to establish a high school for girls. With this invitation our sisters decided to move the community to Madison. In search of land for a new beginning, they eventually bought 40 acres of hilly farmland in the Fox Bluff area overlooking Lake Mendota and the city of Madison. First views of …

With the launch of the new Holy Wisdom Monastery website, we have many upgrades to be proud of. One of the new features is having a Real Simple Syndicate Feed, or RSS Feed for short. RSS feeds allow people to see headlines from their favorite news sources, and then the ability to click on those headlines to read the entire article or blog post. Many websites allow you to subscribe to their RSS feed, such as National Public Radio, the New York Times, ESPN.com – and now, Holy Wisdom Monastery! In our case, this will allow users to see new …

Barren of leaves, the oaks, maples and elms offer capillary silhouettes on the horizon. In winter stillness. the saps, although sluggish, are accruing resolve for budding. Starkness of the trunks and limbs broach extravagance, both symmetry and asymmetry, in this cold and contrast. The rooting ball in each anchors these crowns, laid bare; we are to stay the course. Michael Belongie has dedicated his fifth collection of 52 poems, Now is All We Have, to Benedictine Women of Madison. Michael and his wife, Jane, have donated the proceeds from the book to the new monastery building at Holy Wisdom Monastery.

The following homily was delivered by Jim Penczykowski at Sunday Assembly on February 27, 2011. The readings from the lectionary schedule that day were Isaiah 49:8-16a, 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 and Matthew 6:24-34. “We pray with confidence in the words our Savior gave us, …” These are the words that introduce the prayer of Jesus in the Roman Rite. It is a phrase I wish to meditate on with you today, for our readings from the prophet Isaiah and from the Gospel of Matthew are all about having confidence in what God is bringing about. A scripture scholar of some note, Richard Sklba, taught me …

Hospitality is one of the core values that the sisters live at Holy Wisdom Monastery. One way they do this is by welcoming all to participate in the activities at the monastery. Among the many guests of the monastery, members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer (GLBTQ) communities in Madison and beyond find a place of spiritual comfort and refuge here. Sunday Assembly has a number of gay and lesbian members. Jim Green and Bill Diederich have been worshipping and attending retreats with the sisters since the early 1970s. Bill and Jim recently celebrated their 40th anniversary together …

The following homily was delivered by Mike Sweitzer-Beckman at Sunday Assembly on February 13, 2011. The readings from the lectionary schedule that day were I Corinthians 2:6-10 and Matthew 5:21-37. Mike was raised a Roman Catholic at St. Bernard’s in Middleton, and earned his Master of Divinity degree in 2008 from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. He now works with the sisters as their communications and IT coordinator. Last January 12, I had a chance to go down to the state capitol and watch my wife, Erica, get affirmed into the state bar association inside the chambers of …

The following homily was delivered by Colleen Hartung at Sunday Assembly on February 6, 2011. The Gospel reading from the lectionary schedule that day was Matthew 5:13-20. “You are the salt of the earth”. “You are the light of the world”. “A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket”. “In the same way, let your light shine before others”. With these words Jesus names the gathered crowd as salt and as light…as preservers of life and illuminators of wisdom. In a sense he chooses and urges these …

Guests at the monastery often ask one of us sisters, “Where do you live?” The question usually means do you live in the monastery building. The sisters’ monastic residence is located in the woods a short walking distance from the monastery building. For us the entire monastery is the place where we pray, work, minister, study, receive guests, recreate and find solitude and nightly rest. It is also the place of our final rest. Holy Wisdom Monastery is the home for all of these activities. The monastery building, the Retreat and Guest House, the grounds, prairie and Lost Lake we …